Let the Hurricane Roar

You'll notice the title of this book has been changed to Young Pioneers. As I mentioned a while back, I requested a copy of Rose Wilder Lane's Let the Hurricane Roar from a neighboring library. I wasn't sure what to expect after not being overly thrilled with Rose's story about the Beatons.

Let the Hurricane Roar tells the story of newlyweds Charles and Caroline who leave their home in the Big Woods and settle in a sod house on Plum Creek. Anyone familiar with the history of Laura Ingalls Wilder knows Charles and Caroline were Rose's maternal grandparents. Rose, however, does not give her main characters a last name, though she did give one to all the other characters.

There is Mr. and Mrs. Svenson who are Charles and Caroline's closest neighbors, and Loftus, to whom Charles owes a large debt after the grasshoppers come and destroy his wheat crop. Mr. and Mrs. Henderson own a store in town, and Mrs. Decker is the wife of the saloon keeper. With the exception of the Svensons, the other characters are mentioned only in brief moments, but they have last names, unlike Charles and Caroline and their son, Charles John who is born in the sod shanty. 

Why is important? Maybe it's not, but in Holtz's book, The Ghost in the Little House, the author mentioned an incident between Rose and her mother that might have been part of the reason for the exclusion. Not that I can find the page right now--if I do, I'll add it here--but during one of Rose's stays at Rocky Ridge Farm, she explained her latest story to a group of friends who were also staying on the farm, and Laura told her she got it all wrong because she knew it was the story of Charles and Caroline Ingalls. Holtz mentions that perhaps Laura felt Rose should not use Ma and Pa as the basis for her story because Laura was writing her own stories where Ma and Pa were important characters and she felt protective of those memories. By not giving Charles and Caroline a last name in Let the Hurricane Roar, Rose could have been protecting herself and her story, or maybe she even made a deal with her mother to not add the last names so there would be no direct connection. But, we might never know for sure.

Moving on, people who have studied the real lives of the Ingalls family will notice right away that there is a good deal of fiction in this novel. Charles and Caroline Ingalls did not leave the Big Woods by themselves, Mary and Laura were young girls when they left Wisconsin, and their son never made it out of infancy. We know from Laura's books and other biographies of the Ingalls family that the grasshoppers came and destroyed every green thing on the prairie, and Charles was forced to find work to support his family. But other than that, the events in Let the Hurricane Roar don't seem very similar to what I've read of the Ingalls family history. 

Let the Hurricane Roar was much shorter than Free Land, but that wasn't the main reason I was able to polish it off within three days. This story held my attention from beginning to end. It didn't start off with a young, happy couple who were optimistic about the future and then turn into a tale of despair and hardship against insurmountable odds. Even with all the challenges Charles and Caroline faced, they approached each new page in their lives with a positive outlook. Sometimes it was hard to do-- Caroline and Charles were both lonely when they were apart; Caroline was forced to make tough decisions with Charles back East working; Charles's return home was delayed by an injury, and Caroline and the baby had to survive the winter alone after the Svensons gave up and returned to Minnesota--but they were determined to make it work. Let the Hurricane Roar could easily be compared to one of Laura's books--some of the content, the tone, and the song lyrics remind me of the Little House series. 

There is, of course, one exception to that rule--The First Four Years. This manuscript was not published in Laura's or Rose's lifetimes. In this book, Laura tells us about her first four years of marriage to Almanzo, the birth of Rose, the loss of their home to fire, and the death of their son who hadn't been given a name yet. A trying time for Laura and Almanzo, the tone of this book is very different from the other eight books she had written about her life. 

Rose had sent this manuscript to Roger Lea MacBride, who would eventually become her heir. It was MacBride who took the manuscript to Harper & Row after Rose's death. A decision was reached to publish the manuscript as Laura had written it. Yet, if one were to compare the tone of The First Four Years to Free Land they might see the same similarities I do when I compare Let the Hurricane Roar to the rest of Laura's books. But, since Rose did not touch Laura's manuscript of The First Four Years we might think the similarities are coincidence. Where does that leave us?

I'm sure there are more than the two options I am listing here, but these are the ones I will concentrate on. Rose could have taken eight of Laura's manuscripts, performed heavy editing on them--rewriting entire portions--and even coordinated getting the manuscripts to the publisher. She could deserve to be listed as co-author of these eight books because they wouldn't have sold without her. 

But what about The First Four Years?

Rose never touched it, yet, amazingly this manuscript and Rose's own Free Land are similar in tone and style. There is also a thought traveling through my mind, however, that perhaps the similarities between Rose's Let the Hurricane Roar and the first eight books of the Little House series, and those found between Free Land and The First Four Years could be chalked up to something not as controversial. 

Rose grew up in Laura's house, where her mother shared many of the stories she had heard growing up. Perhaps, Rose's and Laura's writing styles were not so dissimilar overall. If I did not see such a clear connection with the way Free Land and The First Four Years are written, then this theory would not hold water. But, I do see that connection, and Rose never touched the final manuscript her mother had written. So, what's next?

Well, Old Town Home is a collection of stories by Rose Wilder Lane. I need to read more of Rose's writing to see how the storyteller in her interacts with the reader. I have multiple books with Laura Ingalls Wilder collections in them, so it will be interesting to see if my second theory has any merit. I guess that means more reading for me and more blog posts for you. LOL!

Free Land and The Long Winter

A strange thing happened as I sat in the tub reading Free Land. I actually thought for several pages I was reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter. While the names and some of the events were portrayed differently, and they occurred in Nebraska instead of Dakota Territory, there were many of the same details Laura had spoken of in her novel. 

It was freaky to hear of David Beaton and his friends the Peters family--who he lived with during that hard winter--hauling hay from claim shanties, twisting the hay for fuel, hovering around the stove for warmth as the blizzards raged outside, constantly grinding seed wheat in the coffee mill, and even making a lamp made from a rag dipped in axle grease. All of these things happen in The Long Winter within the Ingalls house. 

Now, we writers know that ideas are a dime a dozen and there are no patents on them, but in The Ghost in the Little House, Holtz claimed Laura may have had a problem with Rose using what Mama Bess saw as "her" material. So, I find it odd that Rose would use this part of family history and publish it in 1938, while Laura was working on her own books (The Long Winter was published in 1940).

I can't imagine that readers at the time didn't make some kind of connection between the two--maybe they did. Granted, the Hard Winter is only part of Free Land, whereas Laura's book is entirely focused on that one winter and the hardships the town endured. One good thing about Rose using this material--I was able to get all the way up to page 171 in Free Land because I liked the story. Look for more comments about Free Land as I read through to the end.

The Ghost in the Little House, Part 5

I stayed up last night to read the final two chapters of The Ghost in the Little House. At the age of 78, Rose was contacted by the editor of Woman's Day and asked to make a trip to Vietnam. Chapter 20 of Holtz's book is dedicated to Rose's trip--what she discovered, her opinions on what was going on in Vietnam at the time, and the article she ended up writing. Rose told the story of "the Vietnamese people in their centuries-old effort to throw off a series of foreign oppressors." Rose was very concerned about the Communist threat in America and abroad, and it appears those concerns shaped her story on Vietnam.

As a lover of history, I found this chapter particularly interesting. Prior to her death in 1968, Rose planned another trip to Europe. She was to set sail from New York on November 9th. Some time earlier, Rose decided she was suffering from diabetes--as her mother had. Her fear of doctors caused her to create a new diet for the ailment which she had self-diagnosed. On October 29th, she died in her sleep in her Danbury, CT home. Roger Lea MacBride, who had been in Rose's life for some time by this point, brought Rose's ashes back to Mansfield and laid them beside the burial place of Almanzo and Laura.

I've heard it said that most readers do not bother to look at prologues and epilogues, but to not read Holtz's epilogue would be to miss out on what happened after the deaths of the Wilders and their daughter. 

Laura's books continued to sell. MacBride found Laura's manuscript "The First Three Years and a Year of Grace" and her letters to Almanzo in 1915 when she went to visit Rose in San Francisco and to see the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The first was published as The First Four Years by Harper and Row in 1971. Three years later, West from Home would be published. Then came Landon's television show Little House on the Prairie and a TV dramatization of Let the Hurricane Roar titled Young Pioneers. 

Holtz goes on to discuss how he became involved in writing his biography of Rose, and he claims that even at the time he was writing this book, "Rose is regarded with suspicion in Mansfield, where people tend to be protective of her mother's reputation." He talked about three other people--Rose Ann Moore, William Anderson, and Donald Zochert--who also investigated Rose's involvement in the writing of Laura's books. He goes so far as to claim that Zochert, "guessed privately at more than he could prove regarding Rose's hand in the books." Holtz says there is a "spell of the mythical Laura Ingalls Wilder, frontier heroine and untutored genius of the Ozarks, which prevented an adequate assessment of the daughter's hand in the mother's work," further claiming that Rose had created a shield that no one could penetrate. The author sums up his book with what he hopes to have accomplished and that it was a "happy task to set the record straight."

I have experienced many emotions while reading this biography of Rose Wilder Lane. I have at times been excited to learn more about Laura and Almanzo's only surviving child. But a sadness fills my heart to think of who Rose was, as portrayed in this book. She is someone who seems to have been ruled by her own emotions--taken over by bouts of depression and harboring a resentment towards her parents. Rose always desired to write something more substantial than the meaningless articles she penned to pay her bills.

I wish I could say I came to a conclusion now that the book is over, but I haven't. I know what it is like to have a good editor, but just because I accept her suggestions does that mean I should share the byline with her? 

Holtz makes a big deal out of the fact that Rose typed all the manuscripts for Laura. Perhaps Laura felt she did not need a typewriter if Rose had one, especially if Rose was going to review her manuscripts anyway. While it has been my experience that being prolific in one aspect of writing does not mean you will do as well in other areas, her newspaper articles and poetry still show that Laura had skill with a pen and paper. And while Holtz paints Laura as being a dunce when it comes to fiction writing-- so ignorant that she couldn't even take instructions from Rose on how to edit her own manuscripts--he can't possibly explain away her ability to write thought-provoking articles for the Missouri Ruralist.

I am disappointed that Holtz took the road of discrediting Laura to prove his theories. If his theories are correct, they should have been proven without attempting to destroy Laura's reputation. It appears he feels there is some big secret that he has been smart enough to uncover, which couldn't have been unearthed while Laura and Rose were alive. Maybe he's right. Maybe Laura and Rose did work hard to keep the public in the dark about how much Rose contributed to Mama Bess's books. But I find it hard to believe that a child who wouldn't even help her elderly mother up when she fell down in public would feel obligated to keep such a secret, even after her mother's death.

As I mentioned earlier this week, I am going to review the Appendix at the end of Holtz's book which includes copies of passages from Laura's manuscripts and a version revised by Rose. I will compare these to my 1971 copies of the Little House books. And then I will see if I can get my hands on a copy of Free Land to see if the writing style is similar. This might just serve to confuse me, however, because Holtz contends in his epilogue that, "Any acknowledgement of the mother-daughter relationship as writers [in Mansfield] casts Rose in the role of borrowing from her mother's work."

I hope you have enjoyed journeying through The Ghost in the Little House with me. I really liked reading this biography of Rose Wilder Lane when it spoke solely about Rose. She was an interesting but complex person. She got to travel to places I could only dream of seeing. And she made a name for herself in the world of writing, that seems after reading this biography, to be underrated.

Maybe I will never find the answers to my questions. I might never know what I feel about Rose's contributions to Laura's books. At some point, I might even enjoy living in blissful ignorance on what the truth really is. But I am glad I stuck with Holtz's book to the end, as it has renewed for me a desire to move forward with Laura Ingalls Wilder projects of my own.

The Ghost in the Little House, Part 4

If I sat down to write this entry a few days ago, then the title and this message would have had a very different tone. I came across some of Holtz's comments that infuriated me. I almost abandoned the book on the spot, after spending numerous hours on it and being less than one hundred pages away from the end.

It started around page 292 when Holtz said it took Rose "more than a year of intermittent work to bring By the Shores of Silver Lake to publishable form." He claims that Laura's letters to her agent George Bye were written with instructions from Rose, and the two women were in cahoots to keep Bye in the dark about them working on the books together.

Then we move to the discussion of "The Hard Winter" manuscript which starts on page 302. Holtz says we can find, "mammoth and defining evidence of Rose's hand in converting her mother's primitive narrative into a lively and publishable manuscript" and he claims she rewrote the entire thing. He goes on to say that Rose did similar work to all the other books too, but at this point Rose "seems to have abandoned any pretense at instructing her mother." The word "primitive" above is bolded by me because it really irked me when I read it, just like the next passage I will mention.

On page 306, Holtz has moved on to Wilder's next manuscript Little Town on the Prairie, which he once again says is mostly written by Rose. He cites as an example the chapter entitled "Fourth of July." This is what he had to say: "Nowhere does the story leap more clearly to the eye with Rose's ideological imprimatur than in what she accomplished with Mama Bess's rudimentary chapter "Fourth of July"...the passage (where Pa begins to sing My Country 'tis of Thee and the entire town joins in) is wholly Rose's creation, and in it she has made her mother not merely a romantic but also an ideological heroine." Once again, I have bolded the one word that stuck in my craw.

By this time in Rose's personal life, she rallied against big government and wrote and shared more political theory than fiction writing. Holtz says during this time, Rose barely worked on anything of her own, but instead concentrated on rewriting her mother's books. The passage he mentions from "Fourth of July," as well as other passages in Mama Bess's books, he claims shows Rose trying to weave her ideological beliefs into her mother's stories.

Rose's work on Laura's books then takes a back seat to Rose's life--being investigated by the FBI because of a postcard she sent to radio commentator Samuel Grafton which they thought was subversive, her refusals of rationing cards during WWII, her attempts to avoid income tax by making as little money as possible, and how her ideological beliefs further developed after WWII and into the Cold War.

The most interesting chapter so far is the one entitled "Mother Remembered." Mama Bess has died, and Rose finds herself more prosperous than she had been in years thanks to the royalties from her mother's books. Holtz has copied a letter from Laura to Rose which was written five years before her death. Laura signed as Mama Bess with Laura Ingalls Wilder in parenthesis. Holtz claims this is Wilder's last assertion of her independent status as a writer.

The chapter makes a mention of how Rose had to adjust to life without her mother, which seemed very odd to me, unless it was meant to say Rose was finally free of the burden of caring for her elderly parents (Almanzo had died in October of 1949 at the age of 92).

But the one thing that really sticks out to me is that Rose seems to want to continue the supposed ruse that Laura wrote her famous books all by herself. On pages 349 and 350 we learn that Rose now possessed her mother's manuscripts that had been left at Rocky Ridge Farm. They were discovered by Mr. and Mrs. Litchy, who were working to make Rocky Ridge a memorial to their most famous resident. Rose returns the published manuscripts to the Litchys for use at the museum with a letter "cautioning them with the old fiction that they were early drafts not representing her mother's final intentions." Rose even went on to defend her mother when an article sought to claim that Laura "knew she could achieve a more artistic effect by altering the true facts occasionally." She wrote a letter to the author, Louise H. Mortenson, in which Rose insists that Laura wrote the literal truth. Rose supposedly even took William T. Anderson to task when a copy of his booklet about the Ingalls family suggested that the Ingalls family had neighbors their first year in De Smet. She wrote, "This is a formal protest against your proposal to publish a statement that my mother was a liar." Holtz claims that Anderson corrected his copy to make it agree with Laura's books.

One has to wonder why Rose would go through all the trouble to protect the memory of a woman she seemed to dislike. If she and her mother battled so much, why would Rose insist on keeping their lie alive? Wouldn't it have made Rose even more famous if she came clean about all the work she did on her mother's books? Could revealing this hidden fact not have been Rose's chance to exact justice for her years of mistreatment?

I have only two chapters left to go and my mind is awash in suppositions. At the end of the book, I found an appendix showing samples of Laura's manuscripts versus what Rose wrote, so I know my research isn't done. I will pull out my 1971 Harper and Row Little House books and maybe even purchase Rose's Let the Hurricane Roar and Free Land to compare them.

Should I do this? Will it further confuse me? Or will it make things crystal clear and leave me wishing I left the whole thing alone? I don't know. I guess I'll have to think on it awhile. One thing is certain, that Holtz's book when he sticks solely to Rose's life and not to discrediting Laura, is a real page turner. I should know, I've been staying up too late every night to read it.

The Ghost in the Little House, Part 3

Since my last post about approaching this book with an open mind, I have gone from enjoying the book to being disappointed. I have never experienced such joy and sorrow over learning something new. 

From what I've read, Rose certainly had an interesting life full of travels and writing. While I had heard about Let the Hurricane Roar and Free Land, I did not know they were written with her Ingalls grandparents and her father respectively as the inspiration behind these two stories. I am overjoyed to learn this much about my favorite family.

Now, I am at a point where Laura's writing career is well underway. She has written and published Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, Farmer Boy, and On the Banks of Plum Creek. But the success of these novels is all attributed to Rose in Holtz's book. He gives Laura little, if no credit, in the writing of them. Where earlier Rose complained over the clogging details her mother included, now she says Laura has not included enough details. It would be difficult to prove his point--Rose is the co-author of the Little House series--if he did not discredit Wilder in some way, but there is one comment that turned me off entirely.

Free Land--which was a great success for Rose, gained her fame and fortune like she had never known. It was an eight-installment series which ran in the Saturday Evening Post over a two-month period. The hero of this series, David Beaton, "pits his courage, skill, and endurance against the Dakota plains in the effort to make a farm for his wife and children." We already know that this story is based upon her father's life. During the writing of Free Land, Rose, who now lived in New York City, corresponded with her father, asking him all types of questions so that she could authenticate the narrative. 

On page 281 of Holtz's book it states, "...Rose had gone to some lengths to avoid a facile optimism. Young David's early marriage, a cliché of romance, turns out to be a mistake of the heart, but one he resigns himself to live with." As a reader who already knows this is the life of Almanzo Wilder, this portion of the text infers Almanzo saw marrying Laura as a mistake. If I had no prior knowledge of the Wilders, this comment would have elicited no response--except perhaps pity. But I have been studying the Wilders and their families for years. Through Laura's own books, as well as those written about her, I have learned that while life was never easy for the Wilders, they stuck it out and eventually lived more comfortably. Farming life was hard, especially after Almanzo's stroke; they suffered the loss of a child, a home, and most of their personal belongings in the early years of their marriage. But this comment seems to add one more loss to all the hardships they endured together.

Perhaps it is the hopeless romantic in me which sees them as madly in love with each other or the glossed over version of their life which I watched as a child every Monday night on Michael Landon's Little House on the Prairie which clouds my judgment. All marriages weren't happy--even back then. I've tossed it around in my head several times since reading this passage the other night and I can't get away from the feeling that this comment is only there to further substantiate the claims that Laura was not a very nice person. I felt it an unnecessary dig at an icon of children's literature whose abilities have continually been called into question by the author. Yet still, I have to admire a piece of work which challenges me to think differently about a topic that I am familiar with. Not that I am ready to say I believe Holtz's claims that Rose should be credited as co-author of the Little House books. I am no closer to thinking that than I was when I first started. But I still have over 180 pages left to convince me.

I have to admit I can't wait to sit down and read it every night so I can learn more about Rose and her writing career. I can relate to her bouts of insecurity and desire to write something more of substance than articles for Country Gentleman or editing her "mother's damn juvenile" as she often called it. And isn't that what all writers strive for--to keep their readers interested and get them to relate to their characters? I am willing to call Holtz's book a success from that perspective.

The Ghost in the Little House, Part 2

As many of you know, I deeply admire Wilder's writing and my bookshelves are lined with numerous titles by and about Wilder and her family. The Ghost in the Little House is controversial in that Holtz claims that Rose was the co-author of the now famous Little House series. I've forced myself to keep an open mind while reading it, because I doubt Holtz's claims. Being an editor, doesn't make you a co-author, in my mind.

The beginning was rough for me to get through because it painted a very different picture of Rose's parents than I was used to hearing. Everything I read up to that point spoke of how well liked Laura and Almanzo were. But these were the recollections of friends and neighbors, not the child who lived with them and who spent her adult life feeling like she was committed to taking care of her elderly parents.

I managed to make it past that part of the timeline and move into Rose's travels, which I found very interesting. She had an amazing life from that perspective. But even in this, she was unhappy according to Holtz because she was forced to write articles to get cash, instead of working on something of substance. And, she always felt she must return to Mansfield, MO upon occasion to check on her parents.

I've now reached the point where Rose is living with friends in the old house at Rocky Ridge Farm. She had a new stone house built for her parents to live in, and then she redecorated the old one to her tastes. By this time, Rose was in her early forties. The criticism of Laura begins again. Rose feels interrupted by her mother constantly. References to how harsh and selfish Laura was flow into the text. And once again, I find myself having a difficult time reading about my beloved author in this context.

I am a little over halfway through the book and I know I must read it until the end because I need to know how Holtz supports his idea that Rose should be credited as co-author. In the end, perhaps I will believe as he does. And I wonder what, if any, affect this will have on my opinion of Wilder's books and her abilities as an author. Will I end up regretting reading this book? Will I be thankful my eyes were opened? I really can't say right now. But as I make it through to the end, I am determined to keep an open mind to the possibilities within.

The Ghost in the Little House by William Holtz

In May 2006, I began reading The Ghost in the Little House by William Holtz. This is one of the few biographies of Rose Wilder Lane that I know exists and I put off reading it because the author contends that Rose should be credited as the co-author of the Little House series. What follows are my thoughts and comments as I read the book, which will cover multiple entries.

I am only 60 pages into this nearly 400-page biography of what seems to be a complex and interesting character. As the reviews on the back suggest, Holtz's biography of Lane attempts to prove Rose Wilder Lane was the co-author of the famous Little House books along with her mother Laura Ingalls Wilder. My deep love for the Little House series and Wilder's other writings is what kept me from purchasing Holtz's book.

My intention is to keep an open mind as I read this book, but not even 100 pages into it, I am already struggling. Holtz has made the Wilders out to be less than adequate parents and Rose Wilder Lane is portrayed as a precocious child who understood things way beyond her years. Even the quotes by Rose which appear underneath each chapter's title are carefully selected to make Rose out to seem like the victim of her circumstances. 

Chapter 1 - "I hated everything and everybody in my childhood..." 

Chapter 2 - "Influences: 1 - 16: no affection, poverty, inferiority" 

Chapter 4 - "The worst thing about life is the necessity of trying to do something with it." 

There are non-derogatory quotes by Lane for other chapters, but none that I consider inspiring or uplifting. It seems Holtz felt sympathy would influence the reader, thus swaying her into believing Lane was the co-author of the Little House books along with her mother. Perhaps Lane did offer her mother more than editorial advice. I have 300 plus pages to figure it out.